Mine to Keep (Mine 2)

Even though he wasn’t looking at her, Skye’s chin hitched up. “Trouble? You mean the kind where I trust the wrong man and nearly get killed because of it?”

He whirled around. “Skye—”

“Been there, done that,” she snapped at him. Her hands fisted. “I’ve got to say, this is one hell of a moving-in party.”

She spun on her heel and marched down the hallway. Her heartbeat sounded like drums in her ears and—

“I don’t…want it touching you.”

Skye paused a few steps away from their bedroom. Then, crap, she found herself storming back toward him. “What are you talking about?”

He drained the glass. Slammed it back on the bar. “I’ve done things that weren’t good, Skye. Things that—if you knew about them—they’d give you even more nightmares.”

He headed toward her with slow, determined steps. A predator, stalking his prey.

I’m the prey.

“I don’t want you to know about the things I did while we were apart. I want us to go forward. Fuck the past.” He stopped just a foot away and gazed down at her. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. “What we have is good. I’d damn well die for you, and you know that.”

She did. She also knew…

He’d kill for me.

The world saw Trace Weston as a suave businessman. A charmer who’d exploded onto the security scene. He’d amassed billions in record time.

But no one knew about his past.

Once, Skye had thought that she knew everything about him.

Now she was realizing that Trace had secrets he didn’t intend to share with her.

“Nothing can come between us now,” he told her.

Why did she feel like he was making a vow?

Trace smiled. The smile that had always made her breath come a little faster.

He advanced toward her. “You were right when you said this wasn’t the way to celebrate your moving in…”

“Trace.”

But he’d scooped her into his arms. He carried her to the bedroom. The room was dark. The sun was setting, and the light barely spilled through the curtains and onto his massive bed.

But…something was shining on his bed.

Skye glanced over, frowning, even as her arms tightened around Trace’s neck. “What is that?”

“It’s your welcome home present.” He kissed her and slowly lowered Skye to her feet.

Then his hands went to the back of her dress. A flick of his fingers unhooked the button near her nape, and the dress slid to the floor with a soft slither of sound.

She was left in her high heels, her black panties and her matching bra.

Trace was fully dressed.

“Don’t move,” he told her.

Then he reached around her, and, yes, the sparkle on the bed seemed even brighter now.

Diamonds. A necklace full of glittering diamonds.

He put the diamonds around her neck. They were cold, and she let out a little gasp.

A fortune. That’s what he just put around my neck.

She knew exactly how much those diamonds had cost him. In another life, she’d been a prima ballerina in New York. Before her car accident and her stalker, before the nightmares—

“Skye.” Her name was a sharp demand.

Her gaze flew to his face.

“Stay with me,” he ordered.

He always knew what she was thinking.

But do I know him?

The diamonds chilled her skin.

He lifted her hair, brushing it back over her shoulder. “You’re so beautiful.”

And he was the only man she’d ever loved.

At fifteen, he’d burst into her life, saving her from an attack. He’d been her hero then.

Her world.

But he’d left her. Gone away, and for ten years, they hadn’t seen one another.

What happened to him during those years?

He lowered his head and he kissed her neck. Her breath rushed out because that spot was so sensitive, and Trace knew that.